Rumsfeld: US not Sending Troops to Pankisi

(Tbilisi, March 14, Civil Georgia) – “The fact is that we have no plans to send U.S. forces into the Pankisi gorge. We’re sending a relatively modest number of trainers over to assist them in training,” US Defense Secretary stated at the joint press conference with his Russian counterpart on March 13, Pentagon news service reports.

The US military instructors are to arrive in Georgia in late March. US President George W. Bush stated on March 11, that 150 American military experts would be sent to Georgia.

US military trainers will prepare four battalions of Georgian Defense Ministry to defeat terrorists harboring in Pankisi gorge.